Gallery: 2014 in Pictures

22 December 2014

CAR, Berbérati - Primary and Secondary healthcare

Photo: Yann Libessart/MSF

A child collects termites in the streets of Berberati. In January 2014, MSF began activities at Berberati Regional University Hospital to meet the health needs of the displaced and to treat victims of violence. Although violence in the town has reduced since January, the situation is still volatile and health needs remain massive. In May 2014, there were more than 3,000 outpatient consultations, 2,450 of them for patients suffering from malaria.

Obstetric Fistula In Burundi

Photo: Matteo Bianchi Fasani

In Burundi, each year, 750 women are affected by obstetric fistula. Obstetric fistulas are injuries of the birth canal and most often result of prolonged, obstructed labour. They cause incontinence, which can lead to social stigma. MSF has implemented a system of reference and opened a specific center for the treatment of these women. The team also works to raise awareness of the condition within the country through medical staff training and a helpline.

Vaccination in Masisi, Eastern DRC

Photo: Phil Moore

Porters carry sacks containing vaccination equipment over a bridge of bamboo and vines between the villages of Kitobo and Katanga during an intense vaccination campaign in Masisi territory in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on August 14, 2014. Just before reaching the bridge, one must cross a checkpoint manned by rebels who control the surrounding area.

Outreach activities in Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Photo: Edu Ponces/RUIDO Photo

A little girl of Jacaleapa in Tegucigalpa who has no access to school lives in one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods of the city where physical violence and sexual harassment occur daily. The zone suffers from a lack of basic services such as education, food and healthcare. MSF works with families who have social care needs to give them access to a health center and receive medical and psychological attention if exposed to violence.

Syrian refugees in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum

Syrian refugees living on the grounds of a former prison now occupied by several Syrian refugee families on the outskirts of the village of Majdal Anjar, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Domiz refugee camp, Iraq

Photo: Yuri Kozyrev/Noor

Patients at the MSF health clinic in the Domiz refugee camp in northeast Iraq. The clinic provides primary health services to the camp's approximately 60,000 refugees from Syria. Domiz Refugee Camp was established by local authorities back on in April 2012 to host the Syrian Kurds. The camp located 20 kms southeast of Dohuk city, in Iraqi Kurdistan and some 60 km from Syria/Iraq border. So far the total number of Syrian refugees in Kurdistan region is 60,151.

Iraq: IDPs from Sinjar District

Photo: MSF

Escaping after days under siege from IS forces, civilians in the Sinjar mountains receive bottled water and biscuits supplied by MSF and a local association.

Mediterranean migrant route

Photo: Ikram N'gadi

Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees mainly coming from Eritrea and Gambia land in Augusta, Sicily.

Migration in Mexico

Photo: Anna Surinyach/MSF

Border between México and Guatemala. This is the beginning of the journey for the Central American migrants trying to make it to the US. MSF is giving humanitarian assistance to this population in several spots of southern México.

Cameroon: Central African refugees

Photo: Daniel Barney

Gbiti Camp, since February many people have left the camp. Some were taken in by family (refugees who arrived in Cameroon years ago) and many have been moved to other camps further inside Cameroon.

Burned dwellings in the town of Leer, South Sudan

Photo: Michael Goldfarb/MSF

Dozens of burned dwellings are viewed from the air in the town of Leer, South Sudan, February 2014. The MSF hospital in the town was was also thoroughly looted, burned, ransacked, and effectively destroyed, along with most of Leer, sometime between the final days of January and early February, 2014, leaving hundreds of thousands of people cut off from critical, lifesaving medical care. The hospital, opened by MSF 25 years ago, was the only secondary health care facility in Unity State.

Harmanli, Bulgaria

Photo: Alessandro Penso/Magnum Foundation

A young boy takes care of his sick grandfather. Teams from MSF have provided medical and psychological healthcare, distributed essential aid and made improvements to buildings and facilities in three reception centres for asylum seekers in Bulgaria. The centres were MSF worked, in Harmanli and in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, are home to more than 1,500 refugees, many of whom have fled war-torn Syria, making a long, often dangerous journey to Europe in search of safety and protection.

Guinea:Ebola epidemic confirmed by the Guinean Ministry of Health on March 22

Photo: Amandine Colin/MSF

The Ebola epidemic confirmed by the Ministry of Health on March 22 is the first to affect Guinea. The priority of the teams on site is to identify patients with Ebola symptoms and isolate them, while providing high-quality care. In cooperation with the Ministry of Health, MSF created an isolation facility in Guéckédou and is setting up another in Macenta. Both towns are in the Forestière region of southern Guinea. Mobile teams are also evaluating the situation in Kissidougou and Nzérékoré and are monitoring bordering countries closely, particularly Sierra Leone and Liberia, where suspected cases have been reported.

Mental Health Care in Colombia

Photo: Surinyach Anna/MSF

The youngest son of Rosa Inés Pisso disappeared on September 7, 2008, when he went to take an exam to join the army. He was threatened. She hopes to see him again. "The silence is what kills. At night, when I lie down, I think: “Where could he be sleeping?

Treating malnutrition at Boost Hospital in Afghanistan

Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Reportage

Woman waiting in the ER in MSF-supported Boost Hospital in Lashkar Gah. Last year in 2013, 66 000 patients were treated in the Emergency Room. MSF is now working on expanding the ER to extend its capacity.

Malnutrition in Bihar, India

Photo: Sami Siva

MSF has been treating malnutrition in Bihar since 2009. In 2014 it started a malnutrition Intensive Care Unit in Sadar Hospital to help acutely malnourished patients with complications.

Komotini Detention Centre, Northern Greece

Photo: MSF

In Greece, MSF has been responding since 2008 to the urgent medical and humanitarian needs of newly arrived migrants, as well as to asylum seekers and migrants in administrative detention. During 2013 and 2014, MSF worked in six immigration detention facilities in the north of Greece, and made assessment visits to 27 regular and border police stations, coastguard facilities and pre-removal centers across Greece.

Boende Ebola Treatment Centre

Photo: Gabriele François Casini/MSF

Hygienist decontaminating his boots inside Boende Ebola treatment center. The Ebola outbreak was declared in August in the Equateur province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Donka Ebola treatment centre in Conakry, Guinea.

Photo: Julien Rey/MSF

Each night, all the waste from the high risk zone needs to be burnt. In fact, no object that cannot be chlorinated can exit the high risk zone for security reasons and therefore need to be burnt on site.

Ebola in Paynesville, Liberia

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

A MSF, health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on October 5, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia. The girl and her mother, showing symptoms of the deadly disease, were awaiting test results for the virus.

Cathy Wisil, 34, consulting at the family support centre in Port Moresby following inter-partner violence. Papua New Guinea has extremely high levels of sexual, domestic, social and tribal violence.

Figthing HIV and TB, a dual epidemic in Swaziland

Photo: Giorgos Moutafis

Thulsile Dlamini a MDR TB patient with MSF TB Psychosocial Assistant Mxolisi Dlamini during a home visit at Mbulwane, in Shiselweni, south of Swaziland.

Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza City

Photo: Samantha Maurin/MSF

Kelly Dilworth, MSF anesthetist, in the intensive care unit of the burnt service of Shifa hospital where two brothers, 8 and 4 years old, are hospitalized after being severely burned when a missile fell on their house.

Giving Birth in Central African Republic

Photo: Laurence Geai

Sonia is getting ready on the delivery table. Sonia is 21 years old. She came to the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in M’Poko camp to deliver in the proximity of the Bangui international airport. Last December, while Sonia was more than 7 months pregnant, a wave of extreme violence struck Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, obliging her to flee her neighborhood and seek refuge at the M’Poko camp.

Gender Based Violence in Nairobi

Photo: Matthias Steinbach

MSf staff went to different slums in Nairobi to perform music and theatre on the issue of gender based violence. MSf also advertised the GBV clinic in Mathare - open 24 hours a day to raise awareness about GBV.

Lassa fever project, Sierra Leone

Photo: Lam Yik Fei

Usman, father of Khadijah, 2 years old, waits outside the Lassa fever isolation ward while waiting for his daughter’s Lassa fever test result. Khadijah was referred in time to Kenema government hospital where she was treated with ribavirin for ten days and she was discharged in good condition.

Sidama mother and child project, Ethiopia

Photo: Matthias Steinbach

MSF teams travel on horseback and carry supplies by hand across difficult terrain in the Mejo Woredas (division) in the Sidama Zone of Ethiopia.

A young mother feeds her premature newborn at the obstetric and neonatal emergency hospital in Delmas 33 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The hospital offers free, around-the-clock emergency care for women with complications during pregnancy or child birth.